“One may ask, on the other hand, whether reality can be staged so accurately that the camera-eye will not detect any difference between the original and the copy. Blaise Cendrars touches on this issue in a neat hypothetical experiment. He imagines two film scenes which are completely identical except for the fact that one has been shot on the Mont Blanc (the highest mountain of Europe) while the other was staged in the studio. His contention is that the former has a quality not found in the latter. There are on the mountain, says he, <<certain emanations, luminous or otherwise, which have worked on the film and given it a soul.>> Presumably large parts of our environment, natural or man-made, resist duplication.”

(S.Kracauer – Theory of Film: The redemption of physical reality)